Cruel Jokes
by Erra
Summary: Remus wishes that he could have done so much more. Nevermind his fear of being left alone—he should have helped Sirius from the beginning, no matter how much the odds ended up being stacked against themm.


The fear would come to Remus on the nights when the moon was hanging high and bright, gibbous and on the brink of filling up completely with white light.

It was the kind of anxiety that Remus didn't have a name for—it was worse than when he would transform. And there was a part of him, no matter how small, that looked forward to the old shack, to the journey that was no longer solitary. What was pain when you had friends like he had?

And then there was Sirius.

And Sirius would smile at him, dark eyes flickering with light even when the lamps were all out in the dormitory. As if in immaculate slow-motion, Sirius would throw his head back. He would shake the hair out of his eyes. He would bark with laughter. And Remus could feel his own heartbeat slow, his shoulders easing down.

So Remus did not have a name for that, either. He could not name what he felt towards Sirius, when Sirius' sharp canines would peek through his smirk, pushpinning the image of Sirius' grin forever into Remus' brain.

It might have been because it had struck him completely by surprise. Remus was not stupid. In fact, he prided himself on being somewhat intelligent. When he first started thinking about love (was _that_ what it was?) in any capacity—at first, vaguely, then more fully when he was a teenager—he realized with a start that he would be alone forever.

Friends, yes, he could have. Did he love his friends? Of course he did. The things they had done for him—for _him_! But finding someone to love, really truly _love_—well, that was a different matter entirely. Remus was sure that _he_ could do it, if push came to shove. He was not sure that anybody else could. No, the fur would get in the way, as James liked to tease.

So Remus was surprised, yes, when he found himself in sixth year, writing notes with one hand and tracing the angles of Sirius' jawline on the worn wood of the desk with his other hand.

"Are you feeling alright, Moony?" Sirius cocked his head to the side—a strange, oddly doglike thing that he had always done, even before they could transform.

And for a moment, Remus was surprised at how readily he wanted to tell Sirius the truth. But Remus had no idea what the truth would entail.

"Never better," Remus mumbled, returning to his Herbology essay.

It was one o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday. The moon was still just a scratch in the sky. James had already gone to bed. Peter was in the library, or something.

Sometimes, it was so painful to think about that he chose not to think about it. Instead, Remus would think of the other fear that would come to him, the first fear. The one that liked to gnaw at him, reminding him that one day, things would never be the same. Because, honestly, quite truly, Remus wasn't able to visualize his life with his friends past Hogwarts.

"Moony, you twat."

"What?"

"You've got that look on your face."

"Sirius, what are you talking about?"

"The one where you get all quiet and won't stop staring off into space!"

"I'm not all quiet. I'm not staring off into space."

"Yes you are. You weren't even listening to what I was saying."

"I—I was too."

"No you weren't. Then what was I saying?"

"You were talking about the baby mandrakes."

"That was five minutes ago. I moved on from the baby mandrakes because of the ethical dilemmas attached to stealing and distributing baby mandrakes."

"Having everybody pass out for hours at a time would be quite unethical, yes."

"Right, but enchanting the Slytherin common room password to only work when it's said in a falsetto is far less unethical."

"I will admit that I didn't hear that part."

"It's technically against the rules, but it shouldn't be too crazy, since it's not like I'd be-well, we'd be—changing the password itself."

"Your intelligence never ceases to surprise me, Sirius."

"Right you are, but what are you upset about?"

"I'm not."

"Moony, you're upset. You've got that look on your face."

Remus looked Sirius straight in the eyes.

"I was just thinking, that's all."

"Yes, I _know_. That's not the part I'm confused about. Spit it out."

Remus put his quill down. It was no use to argue. "Do you think we will see each other as often as we do now?"

Sirius looked surprised. He must have been expecting something else, Remus reasoned.

"What, you and me?"

"Yes. Everyone, I suppose."

"Of course!" Sirius laughed. "What would be the alternative?"

"I don't know."

"What do you think we'd do, leave you?"

"No!"

"Then what's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's _the matter_, I just was wondering."

Sirius thumped Remus on the back. "Mate," he said, "we are all going to graduate, settle down in our respective rooms in the flat that we will all contribute rent money towards, and we will sleep with lots of girls and drink lots of liquor."

Remus snorted. "Is that so?"

"What else would we be doing?"

And Sirius left it at that.

_What do you think we'd do, leave you? _Remus let the question hang in his head. _Sometimes_, he admitted.

* * *

_You look so different from what I had imagined_, Remus thought for the hundredth time, one day in August when Grimmauld Place was uncharacteristically empty.

"Do you remember that we were going to get a flat together?" Remus asked from across the kitchen. Sirius was gnawing on some bread. Remus was watching him eat. Just like old times.

_If I squint, I can erase the hollows in his cheeks and make him whole again._

"Azkaban lacked the amenities, really," Sirius replied between chews.

"I'm serious."

"Of course I remember. Is that why you've decided to stay here with me? Under the guise of doing work for the Order?"

"I _am _doing work for the Order."

"Are you sure you're not just doing it to live out teenage Moony's dream?"

"It's a bit different from what I imagined," Remus smirked. He left it at that. He did not say, _I thought you left me for good and I hated you for it._ He did not say, _You should have hated me, because really I was the one who left you._

* * *

And so it surprised Remus, that he was the only one left, not even a year after he had watched Sirius tear at the bread with his teeth in the kitchen that he hated. Not even a year after he had stood in a room, alone, with an old friend.

Surely, it was a fluke. Because somewhere in London there was a flat tucked away with four beds in it.

Perhaps there was a house for a wolf and a dog that would come later, with only one bed. Remus did not know where it would be; he had never allowed himself to imagine it in detail.

So it surprised him, even after, that his fear from his teenage years had come true. Surely, not after Remus had promised to never leave for a second time. Not after Remus had stayed by Sirius, to make up for it all.

It was Sirius's cruelest joke: Remus did not leave Sirius, in the end. Sirius did all the leaving.


End file.
